Congratulations to all the winners of the UK Sustainability Challenge Grants – and in particular we offer up a big cheer for those project leaders who are focusing on service-learning and on college/career readiness programming in their initiatives.

Building an Inclusive Community by Empowering Youth through Sustainability Education – Team members: Roger Brown (Agricultural Economics); Kristina Ricketts (Community and Leadership Development); Thaiieasha Beard (Agricultural Biotechnology); Xavia Gantz (Retail Management and Tourism); Bryan Haines (Community and Leadership Development). Awarded $27,455 to build a Youth Empowerment Through Sustainability Education Program centered in the Smithtown neighborhood at The Plantory on West Sixth Street in Lexington. The program will have three main components: sustainability and sustainable agricultural education, applied community engagement through community awareness and community service, and professional development and personal succession planning of each participant. The goal is to “increase the ecological integrity of the youth through teaching about the importance of sustainability and how to practice it regularly in their daily lives through the sustainability education component.” The team intends for the program to contribute to social equity in this geographic area by “engaging youth in community awareness and service opportunities that teach them the importance of community development.”

Establishing Native Forest on Surface Mines – Team Members: Chris Barton (Forestry and UK Appalachian Center); Kenton Sena (Forestry); Michael French (Green Forests Work). Awarded $18,175 to establish shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata), a declining species of southern pine, on a portion of the surface mined tract of Robinson Forest in eastern Kentucky. This project will help restore habitat for bird, bat, and invertebrate species of concern that rely on shortleaf pine. Green Forests Work will involve UK students and “students from local communities in volunteering at tree planting events, providing important outreach opportunities and a sense of accomplishment, ownership, and ecological responsibility.”

From SEE(E)D to (S)STEM – Team Members: Eduardo Santillian-Jimenez (UK CAER); Rebekah Radtke (Interiors); Margaret Mohr-Schoeder, (STEM Education). Awarded $25,184 to connect students, faculty and staff in UK science, engineering, entrepreneurship, education & design – SEE(E)D – to promote sustainability, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – (S)STEM – to underserved K-12 students using a game to teach K-12 students about complex and often misunderstood energy and sustainability issues. UK student entrepreneurs will develop a business plan so that profits from the game are reinvested in the development of additional didactic tools. These didactic tools will be used by minority engineering students working with the target K-12 institutions.

Point of Departure – Team Members: Martin Summers (Architecture); Michael Wilson (UK CAER); Regina Hannemann (Electrical Engineering); Owen Duross (Architecture); Thompson Burry (Architecture). Awarded $49,991 to design and help construct critically placed high-performance transit shelters—part of an existing UK Sustainable Campus Exemplar Project – and to “engage students in a dialogue about sustainability, alternate transportation, the value of design, and the possibilities of collaborative research at UK.”

Solar Powered Tractor – Team Members: Joseph Dvorak (Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering); Mark Williams (Horticulture); Don Colliver (Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering). Awarded $25,000 to support the UK Horticulture Research Farm’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program using only solar power for field machine work. Students (BAE/EE 599) will design the PV solar system. Student employees and graduate students in the BAE department will switch a small 20-horsepower diesel-electric hybrid tractor to all electric and install the charging system. Student apprentices (SAG397 Apprenticeship in Sustainable Agriculture) and employees on the CSA will use the tractor to produce crops.